


More Than What We're Made Of

by FompFloat



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24895660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FompFloat/pseuds/FompFloat
Summary: This fic is inspired by Ellie's journal entries in the actual game. If you have not played TLOU 2 and don't want it spoiled, this is not this fic you want to read.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	More Than What We're Made Of

**Author's Note:**

> If TLOU 2 made you feel like you would never feel joy again, welcome. I'm right here with you. It's crazy that were so many things I loved about the game, but at the end of it I was too pissed off at the whole experience to appreciate it. I'm sure many people feel the same
> 
> This story will be in three parts. Past, present, and what I hope for the future. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.

Ellie is the most bullheaded person Dina had ever met.

Most of the people of Jackson could be described that way, surviving in this life and paving a way to really live it, needed that kind of unwavering persistence. Ellie though, was stubborn to the point of stupidity. Dina could barely stand her. Not two days after arriving, when she first got to Jackson she ended a fight that had broken out among the kids wanting to establish a cruel pecking order. She hadn’t said a word to anyone, but they were picking on one of the scraggly ones to do their chores for them. The mistake they made was starting the fight outside her room. 

Not a moment later, slamming the door open hard enough for the window to nearly fall out. She briskly walked up to the ring leader and knocked him flat. She made quick work of the other kids, some bigger than her, but Ellie seemed used to it. Baring her own battle scars from the fight, a bloody nose, she didn’t flinch. Just spat into the mud. The terrified boy tried to get up to thank her, but once she yanked him to his feet and gave him a quick once over she went back into her room without another word. After that Dina couldn't help but keep watching. 

Ellie was quiet.

Not an unusual quality for most survivors, thing about Ellie though, she never hesitated, she was always decisive. She took up her space unapologetically and if she did say something, people listened. Dina was one of the few who could keep up a conversation with her. She didn’t seem to like people at first glance but she didn’t go out of her way to avoid them either. Like she wanted to know there were people around, but being around people was too loud. 

Dina always tried asking her about the outside and how she got to Jackson, she herself was lucky to have made it when everything first happened, but Ellie seemed to know so much more than other people in camp. The adults too. Ellie always brushed the question off saying it didn't matter because Jackson was better.

“Dina I want you to be careful around the new girl you seem so keen on bothering.” Her father warned, as they prepared the food for the evening, he chopped the potatoes to bring to a boil. She’d just gotten home after seeding the corn crop for the coming season.

“How’s that fair? What makes you think I’m bothering her?” Dina huffed, passing the carrots from the harvest this morning.

“She looks ready to stab anyone within a foots distance in the neck! I heard one of the boys was running and they bumped into her. That she nearly dislocated his shoulder. That could be you if you're not careful.” Dina’s father pointed the knife at her in a flurry to emphasize.

“What? She barely touched him! I was there, he was being loud and shoved her out of the way. She just fought back. They're all just jealous cause she grew up on the outside! She’s a badass!”

“Oh? So you think it’s badass to hurt people? Just because you can? Just cause you can’t control yourself?” There was something accusatory about the way he was speaking that Dina didn’t like. 

“It is when those people are stupid.” Dina’s nostrils flared and her father sighed returning to the entree he was preparing. He gave her a hard look, and she said nothing more.

“I’m not asking you to be rude, and I’m not saying she was completely in the wrong. I’m telling you to be cautious. When people first come here it takes time for them to adjust.” He passed over the spoon to taste, it was always spicy with his coveted stash of chilli paste. “We’ve been blessed here to not have dealt with the end of the world for as long as some, but others are not so lucky. Those children don’t even know what they’re jealous of! Why, I guarantee that her father wishes she had gotten here sooner, seeing how she behaves with other kids her age.” Dina didn’t see any problem with knowing how to handle yourself, and not taking any shit from anyone, well anyone except her. Not that she could say it to her dad’s face but, she hoped Ellie would save that right for her.

Ellie was surprising.

She was capable, one of the best runners out there, always finished what she set out to do, and she never shied away from any task. Dina recalled when Joel and Eliie first got to Jackson, and the deadly efficiency they would carry out their patrols. Ellie, for all the hell she gave Joel, was never too far away from him. And Joel? Well he took on a lot of responsibility in Jackson in no time at all. He was persistent too, for all the good it did him in the end. He always tried reaching out to Ellie but she would clam up like she didn’t know how to talk to him. One day Dina just out right asked her while Ellie was practicing the guitar Joel had just found her. 

“Why do you always look so weird around your dad? Like you don’t know how to be around him.” Dina asked the question, surprising herself. Even more so when after a long pause Ellie actually answered.

“He’s not my dad.” Ellie admitted quietly, and after a pause continued “You ever keep yourself from asking a question you know doesn’t have a good answer even though you're dying to know for sure? Even though it could change everything?” Ellie replied quietly.

“I don’t know. I’d be scared though. What are you scared would change?” Dina took a glance at Ellie's hands gripping the neck of the guitar. Ellie said nothing more. Dina never told a soul.

In Jackson, you have to be 17 to be able to go outside the gate after attending training. Ellie was out with Joel right away after arriving, most people attributed the decision to the screaming match that was heard that morning by half the town.She began bringing back things for Dina if she saw she was working on something, like spare parts for a radio since they shared a love of music, a pilot light for a stove if theirs stopped working. Her father started to warm up to her, and even shared some of their food every once in a while. He always said it because of selfish amusement at her expense, ‘Ellie tries so hard to eat spicy food, I don’t think she knows we can see her sweating and turning into a tomato.” 

Ellie had begun to soften around the edges, just a hair since coming to Jackson, Joel too. She even started talking to others around, more with the other adults like Eugene that seemed to carry a natural levity to him. He brought out the dry humor Dina would bare witness to more and more often. She tried not to be jealous.

It seemed like just when Ellie would get her feet on the ground something would happen to kick her legs out, and this time, whatever it was kicked hard. Dina heard from Andy who was up on the wall, that when Joel and Ellie were coming back from patrol, the east side gate could hear them arguing long before getting to the there, guards were scared they had lead infected back to Jackson after a patrol gone wrong. Ellie had come back more bruised up then anyone who lived behind the gates had ever seen her, not that it stopped her from fighting Joel as he helped her get back.

“This is why I said you should have stayed back.” Joel fummed as he carried Ellie on his back, her arms hanging on either side of his face.

“You keep acting like you didn’t need back up, I'm out of ammo and I wasn’t shooting at the snow.” Ellie seethed, blood beginning to form from a cut on her cheek agitated by the movement.

“You didn’t need to be there, you could have been on the gate, you could have done something else. Why do you need to be back on the outside so damn bad?”

“Because I’m not letting you die until you tell me what happened. What really happened!” Joel paused in his stride, stricken with the new understanding that Ellie knows something. Something he doesn’t want to flesh out and bring into the open.

“We are done talking about this.” 

Ellie resigned herself to the fact he wasn’t budging, and that she was done begging him for answers. After that, she started going on patrols with him less frequently, one day they stopped all together. Awhile later, Dina had been guarding the wall when Tommy came up to her out of the blue to ask her to talk to Ellie, and see if she was alright since they were friends and that something happened. Once She hurried her way over, she knocked urgently but when Ellie finally opened the door Dina could see that she'd been crying, and when Dina asked her what was wrong she just curled in on herself, and wordlessly walked over to the bed facing away from the room into the wall. Dina snuck in behind her and just let her cry. Getting close enough to count the freckles on her cheek and back of her neck.

“He finally told me.” Ellie said after a good long while, long after the salt dried on her cheeks. At first Dina didn’t know what she meant but rather than ask her to clarify she thought back and settled on a conversation they had when she first got to Jackson a couple years back. 

“Did you already know the answer?” Dina gripped at Ellie’s arm not knowing what to do since this was the first time she had ever seen Ellie of all people feel like this. She brought her chest closer, firmly pressing against her shoulders, she didn’t know if it was what Ellie needed. All she knew was that if she was feeling this way, it’s what she’d want Ellie to do.

“...Yes.” 

Ellie brought Dina's arm closer to her chest, and Dina had to wonder why something so sad maked her feel kind of happy. She reprimands herself for it.

Ellie kept going out on patrol sometimes on her own, which Joel hated, but whatever happened with them seemed to really tear things up between them. Ellie would still bring back the spoils from her runs. Sometimes Dina would come by Ellie’s room and they would listen to things together if Dina was fixing something up while Ellie drew in her sketch pad. Dina began leaving her work and progressed there and would frequent the space a lot more often now. Dina told her it was because she left her record player at her place and she liked working there because the daylight stayed longer in her room, Ellie just shrugged like it was no big deal, but she stopped locking her door.

Ellie’s drawings were surprising too. Dina didn’t expect them to be good for some reason. Ellie’s hands just contradicted the way she drew, they had a lot of cuts that had silvered over, and calluses from playing guitar. Dina thought that the closest Ellie could ever get to being the girl she was, was when she was drawing. Soft lines, and intricate details of animals, time and care where she had little for herself. Nina made the observation that Ellie could spend an hour delicately shading something, but couldn’t be bothered to sew her own sutures right. 

“That’s ok. You're usually around to do it right anyway.” Ellie smirked, in that cocky way she does.

“Oh god, whatever.” It was the first time Dina felt flustered, and she didn’t know if she hated it.

Ellie was fucking clueless.

Dina was finally able to go out on runs, taste the air outside the walls, much to her father’s dismay. She was terrified and excited all at once. She could go to places without having to sneak off, Dina had been telling Jesse all about it, he nodded his head and laughed at her excitement but she didn’t care, she was headed for the outside. Ellie could finally show her the places they had been marking off on a map to visit when Ellie would come back from her run, not that she could make much sense of it. Now she was ready, and made her way down to Maria to get her assignment.

“I sent her out with Cat already, they headed out really early this morning.” Dina could feel her teeth grinding. “Since you're both here, Jesse? You feel up for setting Dina up on her first run, just the western perimeter? Should be easy, Joel and Tommy were out there last week.”

“Dina?” Jesse gave her a questioning look, and there wasn’t anything wrong with him. She actually liked Jesse, they had hooked up a few times but that didn’t mean he was more than just a pretty beneficial friend to have. This was a special day for her, she was hoping Ellie would be the one to be there with her.

“Yeah sounds great.” Maybe it could be.

When Dina and Jesse made it back they turned in the horse to Scott who let them know that food had just been put out in the mess hall, when Jesse motioned for her to come with she just made her departure and went to her father's place. 

Upon arriving she was surprised to find Ellie already there, sitting at the table with her father and a hot plate of food, casually talking about their day. Dina felt the dark cloud she had carried over her since this morning ebb away, Ellie remembered. They hadn't noticed her come in but she could hear their conversation through the window.

"I just don't understand why she couldn’t work in the clinic with me! She's such a smart girl, I blame you. You always bribe her." Her father's eye crinckled as he laughed, slowly becoming more serious. "Ellie, I'm afraid for her, what if I see her in my office because something terrible happens one day."

"I'm scared too.” Ellie paused, Dina wishing she could see her face. “But you'll be there if anything happens, and I'll be there if she finds herself in over her head.” This seems to reassure him because he doesn’t fly off the handle the way he always does when it comes to her. “Although to be fair, I’d take a clicker over a mad Dina anyday, she can be scary when she wants to.” 

That gets another light chuckle out of him, and Dina smiles too, feeling a twinge of guilt over the feelings she was carrying toward someone who was still looking out for her, who was still the same old Ellie. Finally she opened the door and the familiar rich aroma hung in the air of their house.

Ellie was complicated.

DIna had started coming into her own, dependable with anything that had a scope. If you needed an eagle eye watching out for you while you made your trek on the ground, she was the one you wanted watching. When it came to patrols she was Ellie’s first pick, she loved it if only because it would annoy Cat to no end. They worked well together, Ellie could handle a gun and bow, but was truly fearsome with her hands, she was fearless, and Dina liked that she could watch her back. 

In recent weeks though, Dina found it hard to be around Ellie. Cat was always just around now, they’d always been so close but ever since Cat came into town it feels like her space kept getting swallowed up by her. She wasn’t being fair, Dina knows that but she just felt suffocated around them. Ellie would always try to make plans like they used to, but Dina hated that more, Ellie had a schedule now. Before she could just drop in and do things the way they always did. 

“Hey Dina, do you have a sec?” Dina almost dropped the beets she’d been picking from the garden next to the house. She turned around and worry started to build, something happened. Ellie looked at her directly, holding Dina's gaze in a way that made her stutter a little, Ellie was just so intense sometimes.

“Yeah sure. Is everything ok?” Dina began to set aside her things in case they needed to spring into a run.

“Yeah, no. Nothing is like on fire it just. I think I need your advice on something.” Dina though she’d feel relieved but, the worry didn’t subside. 

"You think?" Dina smirked, playing off the feeling simmering deep down, if this wasn’t about something that happened it was definitely about someone. 

"Yeah, I can do that sometimes. Seriously though you the only person I know that good at this sort of thing."

"Well, it's about time you looked for help. It’s a hopeless case but luckily I’m bored." Dina sat up on the wood of the fence, while Ellie leaned beside her giving her a playful shove. The conversation turned serious again.

"How do you tell someone how you feel, when you know you're just gonna break their heart?" Ellie worried at her fingers, shifting from side to side. Not a week ago she saw those fingers dig into a Hunter's eye sockets. Here she was, scared in a way that contradicted the Ellie everyone knew. Not Dina though, she knew this Ellie just fine. 

"Damn, what happened?"

"I'm just, I think I'm just not made for people. I don't say the right things, I'm not really a people person. Cat thinks I don't talk to her about anything important, and that she doesn't know anything about me 'cause I don't tell her." Ellie sighs, leans back against the wall, and stares up. "I'm good for a fuck apparently but not for much else." Ellie took a deep breath, like she’d been running from her thoughts about this. Dina, more than the pettiness she carried with Cat, she felt sad for her friend, how could she think this way?

"Hey, just cause you don’t spell out everything on a billboard doesn’t mean you don't know how to do this.” Dina leaned forward and threw her arm around Ellie’s shoulder. “You’re fine the way you are, and if she gets her heart broken for being dense then that's her business.”

“The way you say it I almost believe it.” Ellie smiles a sad smile, she stops fidgeting with her hands and looks at Dina with gratitude. Being this close, Dina could see the flecks of color that made Ellie’s eyes so deep, she couldn’t really handle that raw vulnerability she saw in them and shoved her as she leaped off the fence.

“If you were less stupid you would.” She hoped Ellie couldn’t see her chest beating, it felt so loud in her ears.

“Maybe you just need to be more convincing?” She said with that cocky ease, that made Dina want to act, in what way she wasn’t sure. She always get so flustered when the atmosphere changes like this around them. She can’t call it tension because she isn’t mad but she is not sure what to call it.

“I don’t need to be anything, I’m the one with the profound wisdom, and you? Your the useless lesbian.” Dina laughed as she went back to grab the basket she left behind.

“I’ll remember that when I find those earsercap batteries you asked me for and forget them immediately.” They both chuckled lightly, Ellie brought her eyes to Dina once again, with that open honesty that was so foreign on her face. “Dina, thanks.” and even though a witty quip sat behind her teeth, Dina swallowed it down when she saw how genuine Ellie really was.

“Of course, you know I'm always here.” She fucking meant it too.

Apparently, Cat thought the same thing. 

The next afternoon, while Dina was brushing the horses out in the stable she could her swift footsteps in the mud coming towards her, she quickly brushed her hands of dust, a washed them in a clean bucket of water she kept near by. The footsteps stopped behind her at the doorway, when she stood up to full height and saw Cat standing in the doorway, with an unreadable expression she she felt a bit of guilt start to fester.

“Oh Cat, I heard you coming. What’s up?” she shook the water from her hands and wiped them on the back of her pants, her casualty seemed to just piss Cat off more.

“What did you say to her? I know you guys were together last night, Scotty saw you on the fence.” What the hell, this town is way to fucking small, and people were way to damn bored.

“Look, it’s none of my business-”

“No it's not, but you made it your business. All I wanted was for her to talk to me, really talk to me, but the second she feels like saying anything she runs to you and I get some polished apology.” Cat huffed tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m not some crazy overbearing person, but she won’t let me in anymore than she does anyone else.”

“Ok, I can understand that.” She felt the way once a long time ago when Ellie first arrived, and again when she and Cat started seeing each other. 

“No you don’t. She actually talks to you.” Cat gathered herself up, and Dina couldn’t help but have a newfound respect for Cat. She felt bad, Cat was making sense and she wrote her off for some reason, she agreed with the point she was making.

“Look Cat, I’ve just known her for a while. That’s all.” Dina argued weakly.

“That’s not what it is, and fuck you for acting like it. You’re with Jesse, but you have to string her along too! You know what your doing but your too fucking chicken shit to do anything about it!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dina knew exactly what she was saying, not that she was ready to hear it. “You don’t know anything about me, looks like you don’t know Ellie either. That's not my fault.”

“She wouldn’t give me the chance to. Even though I'm the one who really likes her! Even though I want to be there for her.” Cat’s eyes flare "You know what. It's fine. But it's fucked up. You won't be with her, but she can't be with anyone else because you're the one she trusts. She's too thick to have figured why, but you have, and I feel sorry for her."

"Shut the fuck up about shit you know nothing about. I'm sorry if things went sour with you two. Maybe you guys just need to hash things out or maybe it just didn't work. We've been friends for a long time, that doesn't mean I'm the reason for it." Who the hell did Cat think she was, they've barely had a full conversation, but she felt she had the right to throw her pile of assumptions on Dina like they had always been hers.

"Whatever Dina. Deny it if you want. Just figure your shit out. For her sake." Cat wiped at her face with both hands and took one final look at Dina, making her feel small. She briskly walked away while Dina made her way over to Sarge in his stable, as he nuzzled her sensing her distress.

"Fuck."


End file.
